Letter to an Evangelical with Questions, part 1

Dear Friend, 

Many years ago, when I was a questioning evangelical myself, I spent a lot of time online looking for people who were going through the same search I was-- to no avail. I don't think that's true any more. Now there are many sources for intelligent, open-ended conversations about faith and religion. But out of some sort of kinship I still feel with my younger self, I'm going to try to write the post I would have wanted to read at that age. Maybe I still need to read it sometimes.

The first thing to say is that if you are an Evangelical who is not questioning, and you've found a vibrant church where you can learn and grow and the people around you are learning and growing, and the conversation is about grace and not judgment, and the teaching is about following Jesus and not earthly politicians-- if you've found a church like that and you're happy, then you don't need this. Evangelicalism wasn't working for me, and in the 40 years since I left it, I've never had any desire to return. But it does work for many-- there wouldn't be millions of Evangelicals if it didn't. Stay faithful and be curious and non-judgmental and don't be afraid to ask questions, but you don't necessarily need to leave. 

(If you're not an Evangelical and you're just reading this out of curiosity, you may think that Evangelicals like that don't exist, because the news is often dominated by extremists--but they're out there, and they're doing good things in the world, and they are as frustrated with the extremists as you are. Maybe more so, because they're being mis-represented every day.)

But if, like me, you can no longer bear the judgmentalism, the biased, circular reading of scripture, the near-idolatry of desiring earthly power and influence, and the closed-minded insistence on things that are patently untrue (six day creation? really?), then the next thing to say is be careful who you confide in. You don't need to tell everyone, or speak up in meetings, or bare your heart (and your mind) to your pastor-- not until you're ready, which is probably not yet. 

Start paying attention and observing how your church functions and how you function within your church. Watch and learn. How does your church handle people with questions? Are you encouraged to use the mind God gave you? God is big enough and strong enough to survive your questions (and has heard it all before), but often other believers are not that strong. If you do decide to confront someone who is a traditional believer, go into it with the goal of learning, not changing their mind, because it probably won't happen.

Leaving behind a deeply held religious faith-- especially if it is the faith of your family, the faith of your childhood-- is a lonely business, and I was not expecting that. My path had plenty of moments of muddled confusion, but overall, it was so clear to me that I could not continue as an Evangelical that it has always surprised me, sometimes even stunned me, that other Evangelicals I know and love haven't been on a similar journey. My mom and both of my siblings are still deeply Evangelical, as was my dad until his death. I'm fortunate that they still love and accept me and my weird beliefs, because not all "ex-vangelicals" are so lucky. Don't burn any bridges you don't need to (and sadly, you may need to. But don't do it carelessly). That's not being cowardly or weak, it's being loving and smart. 

I could have some stronger things to say about church leaders, but if you're a layperson as I am, the whole thing hinges on how you read Scripture. Evangelicals are insistent that the Bible is the "inerrant" (without error) Word of God, as relevant today as it was when it was written. They will you tell you that they believe whole-heartedly that every word of the Bible is factually true. But there are some inconsistencies in their story, and if you start watching carefully, you begin to realize that they tend to land on certain verses more than others, and those verses tend to be the ones that reinforce their biases. 

For example, 1 Timothy 2:12 (I do not suffer a woman to teach a man) is a single verse that has been used as the basis for an entire theology of women's roles in the church, ignoring the examples of women named in the text who were leaders and teachers in the early church. Not to mention Galatians 3:28 (In Christ there is no male or female). You don't have to see that as a contradiction in order to realize that the situation might be a little more complex than the traditionalists want you to believe. 

Be wary of anyone who is going to give you a verse to prove a point-- because this is a situation that Jesus runs into again and again, and he never falls for it. A Pharisee or a church leader would come up to him with a quotation or a bit of Jewish law (from what we call the Old Testament), and they weren't wrong. They could quote the "verse" (although it wouldn't have been called a verse at that time). But Jesus refused to be trapped into a cramped, limited interpretation of scripture. Even the Tempter himself used scripture to try and trap him. Just the fact that someone can quote a verse doesn't mean they're right. 

Oh, it's like opening the proverbial can of worms. Any Evangelical apologist worth their salt can argue about that argument. And that's another good reason not to confront someone you know will not agree-- because they're going to want to prove that you're capital-W Wrong, and that's an argument you're unlikely to win. I'm not an expert, and I can't hand you a winning argument. But I don't need to be an expert, or prove anything to anyone else. All I needed to do was realize that I was no longer going to be trapped into beliefs that were bounded by dry, lifeless interpretations of scripture, interpretations that were intended to put me in my place and keep me there, not allow me to bloom and grow.

.... and it's after midnight. That's why this is part one. More soon.

I don't seem to be able to stop updating you about migraines, and also a few other things

Apologies for disappearing last week. It is true that I was not happy about the election outcome (more about that in a minute), but that wasn't why I didn't post. I had an unusually busy week, and I just didn't have time to write something without staying up way past midnight-- which I'm trying to do less often these days. Partly because I'm old and I can't stay up that late anymore, but also partly because keeping regular hours, including having my morning caffeine at more-or-less the same time every day, might be a way to manage my headaches. 

A couple of months ago, I told you that I was learning about rebound headaches (here and here)-- the headaches you get when you take too many medications. They are also known as "medication overuse" headaches. The only way to stop them is to stop taking meds. As expected, that turned out to be a disaster in the short term-- I spent several weeks feeling miserable. 

But it has been a good thing in the long term. I didn't realize how often I was taking over-the-counter medications like Advil, Excedrin Migraine, Tylenol, and aspirin until I stopped doing it. I'd wake up with a headache and take an advil and two excedrin migraine. Three or four hours later, I might take more tylenol. Mid-afternoon, I'd take two or three advil. Somewhere in mid-August, I stopped all of that. I take prescription migraine meds if my pain level gets up over 7 or so, but other than that, I don't take anything. 

It's the opposite of what I used to do. I used to go through all kinds of mental games and med-taking "strategies" to put off taking my prescription meds. Try this combo, try three more of that, maybe if I take two aleve before bed, maybe if I take advil every six hours so it never wears off. I would get a few hours of relief, but I was still having way too many headaches. 

Now I do the opposite. When I have a migraine (which I define as a headache that gets up to 7 on a 1-10 pain scale), I take my prescription meds. Otherwise, I don't take anything. The good news is that even though it took 6-8 weeks, now when I don't have a migraine, I feel much better, and the low-level headache that I had pretty much all the time has stopped. I hardly ever take over-the-counter pain killers anymore. So that was definitely worthwhile.

But I'm still having migraines. I just feel better in between. So I don't know what to tell you. I'm still figuring this out and probably will be for awhile. I've been pretty consistent with the food things I was avoiding before, but so far that hasn't seemed to make a difference. In the grand scheme of things, two and a half months isn't that long, so it's probably too soon to say. 

I even bore myself when I type these, so I've decided if I want to talk about migraines more in the future, I'm starting a series called "Migraines on Monday" (love a good alliteration). That way they will be easy to find if you're interested, and easy to skip if you're not.

So about the election. There is a lot of triumph and even jubilation in the air around here. But I think all they've proved so far is that they were able to convince 75 million people that electing Trump would make their lives better. Now they've got to actually do it. I have no patience with the people who think that winning the election was the end game. It's not a game, it's our country.

Anyway. If I avoid the news, I can hope it won't make much difference in my everyday life, and I can keep reading too much for escape. For me the key seems to be to narrow down my focus to the situations and people that are right here in front of me. 

And really, that's all we can ever do. We don't know what's going to happen, but some of what happens might be good, maybe even amazing. A very petty part of me wants him to fail so I can say I told you so, but my better self would be so happy if he proves me wrong. It would be better for everyone if he steps up and does a good job. And anyway, as important as the President is, he is not everything. There is room for making a difference. ..... That's what I keep telling myself. 

That's probably more than you wanted from me. Have a good weekend. We're off to Houston of all places, for the wedding of one of my nieces, but it's only a 4-day trip. I just remembered I have a good Houston story from twenty years ago but it will have to wait till another time because our plane leaves at 6am and it's already late.

we interrupt our scheduled programming to bring you another mad, mad, mad post (but first of all, migraines again)

In the several posts about migraines that I've subjected you to recently, I don't know that I've really talked about motion sickness and migraines. The short version is that pretty much every time I fly, I get a migraine, and usually the next day, too. I got home from visiting my mom on Tuesday, and two days later I'm still feeling miserable. Ugh. Fingers crossed for better head health tomorrow. 

The combination of feeling like crap more than 48 hours after my plane landed back at home, combined with the after-effects of a visit to the southern states seems to have reawakened my inner shrew because I have been playing very loud music (a sure sign of anger for me) and slamming around the house all afternoon --which is, of course, great for getting laundry done and finishing my unpacking and cleaning the sinks. 

I’m getting off track here, that is not what this post was going to be about. Actually, what it should be about is an entire post in praise of my amazing younger sister, who is shouldering the burden of my mom's care with only occasional respites from her two sisters who live very far away. I will never be grateful enough.

I've spent quite a bit of time in this blog proclaiming my Crone Pride (can we get a gray rainbow? T-shirts? tote bags?). I've talked about embracing our age instead of running away from it and making ourselves ridiculous by chasing after youth. But I have to tell you after spending five days with my 88-year-old mom, there are a lot of things about getting old that just flat-out SUCK. 

She always tries to be sweet and kind, but you can tell she hates it. She can't do 10% of what she could do 25 years ago. She doesn't cook or entertain or keep her apartment clean, she can't drive or go shopping or even go to church. It's all just too painful, not to mention too much trouble. And although she will probably recover from her current injuries (she's fallen twice in the last two weeks, but thankfully no broken bones, just bruises and a re-awakened blood clot), she's never going to be her competent younger self again. 

She is not of the generation or the personality to get mad about it, so she's being pretty stoic, but I realized on the last day that I was mad for her. It just SUCKS. This is not what she wants for herself, and it's not what any of the rest of us want either. If she falls again, we're going to have to deal with getting her into assisted living, and although her daughters will breathe easier if someone is keeping a closer eye on her, it is absolutely not what she wants. Not to mention that she wouldn't be able to keep her cat. Ugh.

So that's one source of my anger. The other is being back down there. I have such a love-hate relationship with the land of my youth. There's nothing like it. I love it: the food, the drawl, the enthusiasm, the 80-degree weather in late October. There are ways I feel comfortable there that I rarely feel here, even though we've lived here 32 years, and that's far longer than I ever lived there. But at the same time, it also brings up so much anger in me, because I can still feel that suffocating pressure to be something that I never could be, as hard as I tried. Oh, how hard I tried. 

Anyway. Being there, in combination with the election and reading the news and hearing it discussed everywhere around me, brought up a lot of anger. There are things about the men in that environment that I cannot understand.

It's like there's this structure that exists in their heads, that has very little to do with reality. It's a created reality, an act of will. Reality is Like This, because that's what I say it is. You will accept what I say is the truth, regardless of whether or not it actually is true, because it's what I'm telling you. The fact that I have a mistress and maybe even a second family is irrelevant, you will believe that I am a fine, upstanding family man. (Hmmm. Maybe this has more to do with the news than the south.) It's part power play, part inspired leadership, part gamesmanship. And it has to be said-- part knowing your audience and how to hook them in. Based on the response of the Trump base, there are a whole lot of people out there who really respond to that coercive power structure. It seems to be what they want.

And there is a corollary that I really can't understand. There is this undercurrent, largely unspoken, that discrimination against women, sexual harassment and rape, the casting couch, the women who have felt they must, uh, put out, to get ahead-- that's all the fault of women. And especially of feminists. I cannot wrap my brain around this. How is the fact that someone is addicted to porn the fault of feminists? (a statement I actually overheard) How is the fact that women want to be free to express their sexuality (in the same way that men always have been able to) an open invitation to grope, threaten, coerce, and rape? 

Get some personal responsibility, dude. That's your problem. Like I said, there's some structure in their heads that tells them that if women are mistreated, it's the women's fault, it can't be their fault, they're just innocent victims of a slander campaign. Do they really still believe that they can't be blamed for being sexually aggressive because that's "just the way men are"? They can't possibly, can they?

See? this isn't quite saying what I mean to say. And of course #notallmen. I just deleted more. Maybe I will just say this. Twenty-five-ish years ago, back at the turn of the millennium, not long after --hmmm, I thought it was Time magazine, but I can't find it-- not long after a magazine named feminism as the most influential movement of the twentieth century, I read a response piece that said-- if that is true, then maybe the 21st century will be about men figuring out masculinity. Because it's a mess out there right now, and it seems like it is getting worse before (we hope) it will get better. 

And I still didn't say it well. But I've been thinking about it. Lots.